Thread by @semicolonandson

Ten years ago I saw a book called the 4-Hour Workweek.

And I thought: "Why not the 4-Hour Work MONTH?"

I knew one thing @tferriss didn't: How to #code.

Three years later, I reached my goal and enjoyed its fruits for seven years.

👇A thread 🧵 on what I learned

Prequel: In all of history, it's never been easier for people (especially programmers) to reach and exceed their financial needs with a 4-Hour work MONTH.

But getting your operations to that point won't happen overnight.

Expect to toil in the first year. It will so be worth it.

1. Optimize for marketing channels that are fire and forget: my Google AdWords campaigns have been chipping away profitably for a decade. And I get up to 60k monthlies via a deliberate SEO tactic. Show in gory details here:

semicolonandsons.com/episode/seo-st…

2. Customer support is time-consuming. I built my website to provide all the info a customer needs just in time (e.g. the download page contains info on opening files on various
platforms )

And for anything difficult, I say: "We can't do that. But how about a 100% refund?"

3. Software bugs lead to fire-fighting and cause you to spend inordinate amounts of time on your business. There is no better cure than a thorough battery of integration tests that get run on every commit:
semicolonandsons.com/episode/contin…

Anyone who tells you otherwise is an amateur.

4. Analyze your sales data for where you're getting the majority of your profit. Then doggedly focus on this.

This may mean dropping parts of your business that make some (but not major) money. A few years back I killed off a section that accounted for 10% of my revenue.

5. Do any human-centric aspects of your business on a yearly rhythm if possible. I sell notes, but only accept docs once per year, during a 1-week onboarding period during which I hire external assistance. Anyone who applies earlier is told "you'll hear from us in August".

6. Accept that when you're running a business on a 4-Hour work MONTH schedule, you'll be leaving a lot of $$$ on the table.

But in youth, I'd take time over money.

To help during the early days, I moved to a lower cost of living area. Not quite Thailand, but Berlin.

7. So what does a typical 4-Hour work month consist of?
- 1 hour of gathering receipts and communicating with a freelance bookkeeper and accountant
- 1 hour of customer service escalations
- 2 hours of minor code fixes

8. Want to know _a lot_ more about how I operate my business? Well I've recorded a behind-the-scenes website/code/marketing tour here: semicolonandsons.com/episode/Bird's…